A critical look at the anthropogenic global warming conjecture

Archive for January, 2006

-1.4C this morning. Fishpond frozen over once again. Still my thermometer got to -6.4C before Christmas so I guess this is quite balmy. Except I live in Cornwall – the UK far South West!

We’ve been here four years and we’ve never known it so cold. In fact Cornwall is famed for its mild, frost-free winters.

But to claim all this as some kind of evidence against the hypothesis of global warming would be wrong surely. It’s just anecdotal stuff and you can cut ‘n paste local weather extremes to support any conjecture you like. Not that that it is a principle the “warmers” seem to respect of course…

What I have noticed though is a strange silence on the subject. Normally warmers are quick to pick on any kind of weather event as evidence for their theory. Floods? That’s global warming. Drought? Yep, Global warming again! It’s a bit like tossing a penny: “heads I win; tails you lose”. But unless I’ve missed it, no one has yet put their head above the parapet to claim the big Siberian freeze affecting Europe this year is “freezing caused by warming“!

“We give generously to the victims of climate-change-driven disasters such as famines and tsumani, and do nothing to stop them happening again”

Yes you read that right: Tsunami are climate driven disasters!

The zealots will see the hand of global warming everywhere

Take the other week when the big news in London was the unfortunate whale that had strayed into the Thames. The whale got to be the top story on Channel 4 news one evening. They wheeled on an expert (from the Natural History Museum as I recall). No sooner had his interview begun than Jon Snow tried to steer the conversation towards the possibility that this rare event might be evidence for climate change. I think the guest scientist was a bit embarrased by such glib thinking and to his great credit he politely but firmly refused to be drawn on the subject